We Check for 21: Driver’s Licenses, If They Break They’re Fake

WILDWOOD – A man held a genuine New Jersey driver license and flexed it between his thumb and fingers in front of the Starlight Ballroom in Wildwoods Convention Center June 18. The card did not crease. When he tried the same test on a counterfeit license, it folded before it broke in half with a loud pop, with only a thin sheet of laminate holding the pieces together.
“Our licenses don’t snap crackle and pop,” said Joseph Vasil, coordinator of N.J. Motor Vehicle Commission security and keynote speaker at the kickoff for the 22nd Annual ‘We Check for 21’ campaign and training program.
Throughout the course of three sessions, approximately 750 people attended this year’s ‘We Check for 21’ event. ‘We Check for 21’ is an initiative designed to spread the message of a zero tolerance policy for underage drinking for local and visiting youths in Cape May County. The program is the result of cooperation with the Cape May County Prosecutor’s Office, Cape Assist, Cape May County Licensed Beverage Association and Cape May County Chiefs of Police Association.
“We have someone who’s 17, 18, 19-years-old, drinking, and next thing you know, he or she is getting in a car and driving with little experience,” Vasil said, stressing the importance of preventing underage drinking. “And, next thing you know, it’s a missile, it’s a projectile it’s a weapon out there,” Vasil said.
Testing the flexibility of ID cards was just one of the many techniques Vasil taught. He spoke to the crowd of bartenders, servers and business owners about how to validate the nearly 400 different forms of DMV-issued IDs they may encounter, including driver’s licenses and non-driver state issued ID cards.
The flexibility of genuine ID’s is a result of the polycarbonate they are made of. About 25 states make licenses using polycarbonate, a flexible material. Many fraudulent documents are made from PVC, a brittle, white plastic, Vasil said. The color of the plastic can also help to identify fake documents. When PVC is backlit with a flashlight, a circle of purplish white appears, which differs from the amber color produced by genuine ID cards.
In addition to these checks based on the type of plastic the ID is made of, servers, bartenders and liquor store workers need to have other validation tools. A key element of Vasil’s talk was to compare the cards in question to a known genuine document.
Most U.S. licenses have 20-25 security features, including overt features that can be seen in normal light, covert features that can be seen using a black light and forensic features that can be seen using a laboratory.
“Imagine walking into a dark room. You don’t know what’s there, you don’t know how to look for something – until you find the light switch and then you hit the switch and ‘there it is, now I see it.’ That’s the same thing with document fraud,” Vasil said.
Servers, bartenders and liquor store workers also need to be on the lookout for impostors, said Vasil. He urged the audience to follow their gut feeling when they suspect the person standing in front of them is not the person depicted on the ID. He instructed that, in this situation, workers should press the customer about the information on the card.
Before Vasil’s talk, E. Marie Hayes, freeholder of tourism and public information, discussed an example of liquor license employees in action. During every Memorial Day Weekend since 2002, participating liquor stores counted the number of patrons that were refused the sale of alcohol because they could not prove they were 21. Since 2002, the count was 4,803.
Hayes recognized two companies for support of ‘We Check for 21.’ They were Harrison Beverage Company of Pleasantville and Cape Assist, a county substance abuse prevention agency.
Hayes said that, “In addition to Vasil’s talk and the Memorial Day weekend turn away count, the ‘We Check for 21’ program includes training liquor establishment’s staff to validate fraudulent documents, a media campaign during the summer and road signs posted throughout the county that read, “In Cape May County, we check for 21.”
All establishments in Cape May County that hold liquor licenses were invited, though not required, to attend this free event.